Source : Business Times - 6 Jan 2009
KHAZANAH Nasional, the Malaysian government’s investment arm, is mulling a plan to buy several choice pieces of land in the Desaru region of Southern Johor to kick-start a tourist development that has been contemplated since the late 1980s.
Desaru, often touted as one of the great tourist destinations of the state, is located at the south-eastern tip of Johor, 3,800 acres of predominantly forested land with around 25 kilometres of beach facing out to the South China Sea.
Indeed, it has about the only significant beach frontage of any kind in the state which is why businessmen have been trying to develop it for years. Government officials said that was also the reason why Khazanah was taking an interest in it, although it is not within the boundaries of the Iskandar Development Region, which the agency is pushing, its tourist potential and proximity to Iskandar could help boost the other’s attractiveness to investors.
The potential involvement of the relatively well-heeled Khazanah in Desaru signals the federal government’s determination to make the neighbouring Iskandar a success by enticing Singaporean interest in a beachfront development that will be even closer to the republic than Bintan, which is the preferred destination currently.
It also will slake the state government’s frustration over a tourist project that should have been completed years ago but wasn’t because of various economic crises that starved its developers of funding.
On Khazanah’s part, the government officials said that the time was right as the industrial area nearby including oil and gas projects in Pulau Langsat and the various ports were up and running. In addition, a long planned RM1.5 billion (S$631.52 million), 77-kilometre highway linking Senai in the west to Desaru in the east that will cut travel time to the latter from 2 hours to 45 minutes is expected to be completed in March.
Development in the area has been by fits and starts. In the mid-1980s, businessman T Thangathurai together with Japan’s Kajima Corporation proposed an ambitious billion-ringgit development of the area but the plan ran afoul of the recession of 1986.
In the 1990s, the state gave architect-businessman Esa Mohamad the nod. His group is, apparently going ahead with the development of a 19-acre site that includes beachfront frontage, a golf course and a lake around which luxury villas are to be developed.
Even so, most of Desaru remains a strictly local affair with occasional Singaporean visitors with no chic resorts, no fancy restaurants and little hip nightlife to talk about.
All that may be changing with the advent of the new highway as corporate names have begun taking an interest in the area. In August, IJM Land, in which the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation has a significant interest, bought Desaru’s Sebana Golf and Marina Resort including 1,000 acres of land for RM120 million. The company intends to upgrade the facilities and develop the land for high-end housing and commercial property.
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